Vija Celmins to Andrew Witkin: fool the eye

Vija Celmins is known for her small output interrupted by long silences. To admire her work is to lose one’s taste for charm. Her early still lifes are full of an understated yet powerful dread. Her later seascapes, desert floors and night skies look like the world seen through the eyes of the dead.

From 1977 to 1982, she paired rocks she had picked up and saved with painted bronze replicas. Eleven pairs are at the Museum of Modern Art.

I got the idea for this piece while walking in northern New Mexico picking up rocks, as people do. I’d bring them home and I kept the good ones. I noticed that I kept a lot that had galaxies on them. I carried them around in the trunk of my car. I put them on window sills. I lined them up. And, finally, they formed a set, a kind of constellation. I developed this desire to try and put them into an art context. Sort of mocking art in a way, but also to affirm the act of making: the act of looking and making as a primal act of art. (more)

Fourteen years later, Andrew Witkin crafted his own pile of stones. Like Celmins’, his assortment is full of ringers. Unlike Clemins, he created his bleached bone pile for beauty’s sake. While hers is a challenge to the eye, his is a reassurance. All of it, from table tennis balls and bits of cork to stones and ceramic orbs, vibrates on the same visual frequency in order to fuse.